• November 11, 2002
• Vol. 58
• No. 20

Texas Two-Step

No Longer Lone Stars, Lovebirds Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey Sing, Dance and Say, "I Do"

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From PEOPLE Magazine

Two weeks before she was to tie the knot with 98° singer Nick Lachey on Oct. 26, popster Jessica Simpson was beset by fashion nightmares. "I kept having a dream," she says, "that I'm walking down the aisle in a Juicy sweatsuit." In fact, as a radiant Simpson, 22, made her entrance before about 350 guests in a stone chapel at Riverbend Church in Austin, Texas, she was adorned in a strapless Vera Wang gown beaded with pearls from the bodice down to the tip of its majestic train. That sight alone may have been enough to move the groom to tears. Indeed, as the Baptist ceremony progressed, Lachey, 29, got choked up trying to sing "My Everything," a 98° song he'd written for his bride. Luckily he had support from bandmates Jeff Timmons, Justin Jeffre and Drew Lachey, Nick's younger brother and best man. Simpson then mouthed the words as a friend sang "My Love," a song she'd written for Nick. Following the exchange of vows before minister Brian Buchek, a friend of Jessica's since fifth grade, a 25-voice choir broke into "Oh Happy Day."

It was. So, for the couple, was last Feb. 10, when Lachey proposed to Simpson on a yacht off the coast of Hawaii. The L.A.-based twosome first met at the 1998 Hollywood Christmas Parade, fell in love weeks later at TEEN PEOPLE's first anniversary party, then broke up for a few months in 2001 before reconciling (like many couples) on Sept. 11. Simpson announced their engagement on her Web site: "He had been patiently waiting for me to grow up a little (which I needed)."

After the one-hour service the party headed to a candlelit reception at the Barton Creek resort, where they feasted on lobster bisque, spinach salad and lemon thyme chicken. "I can't wait to dance with my daddy," said the bride, who did a turn with her manager father, Joe, set to Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl." But first she and Lachey danced to Morrison's "Crazy Love," performed by country singer Neal McCoy. "They were just like regular people," says Bill Browder, a guitarist in the Big Time, a local band hired for the bash, "except prettier and richer."